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Mental health evaluation continues for man who spoke of school shooting

Brandon Luzzi, who was held at Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport, told his mother that he believed the voices that told him to 'do a school shooting' came from a foreign object or device inside his body.

Police say Brandon Luzzi, who lives across Thomaston Street from South Elementary School in Rockland, had multiple guns in his house when he told a friend about voices telling him to "do a school shooting." Staff photo by Derek Davis

The Rockland man taken into protective custody Tuesday after making a threat about shooting up a school is still under evaluation at Pen Bay Medical Center, his mother said.

Brandon Luzzi

Brandon Luzzi, 62, of Thomaston Street in Rockland, was being held Friday while doctors determine whether he is mentally ill and a danger to himself or others, police said. By law, authorities can hold Luzzi for up to 72 hours without taking additional steps to prove why he should be held longer, Rockland Police Chief Bruce Boucher said Wednesday. That makes it likely authorities will have to take some action Saturday if they plan to continue to hold Luzzi.

Police took him into protective custody and transported him to the psychiatric ward at Pen Bay in Rockport after a tipster called police to say Luzzi told her that he heard voices, and the voices urged him to “do a school shooting.”

Police searched Luzzi’s home and found seven rifles and shotguns and a flare gun, as well as ammunition for the guns. Luzzi’s home is across the street from South Elementary School’s baseball fields.

Luzzi’s mother, Chevala DeLorenze, spoke with her son by phone for about 20 minutes Thursday night. She said he sounded like himself, but he was doubtful the doctors there could help him.

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She also briefly discussed the voices he was hearing. Luzzi told his mother that he believed the voices were coming from some foreign object or device inside his body. However, she said the conversation was otherwise like any other she has had with her son in the past, and that she did not detect anything unusual about his demeanor during the call.

“I think he honestly didn’t think anything was wrong with him mentally,” DeLorenze said. “Because he functioned as any of us do, he lived a very normal life. He certainly wasn’t mentally unfit, or isn’t. To talk to him, if you sit down and talk to him in a coffee shop you’d have a normal conversation and think, ‘Wow this is a really good guy.’ ”

Luzzi did, however, acknowledge that hearing voices is a problem, according to his mother.

“I’m sure that he thinks – that he knows it is not normal for him to hear voices, but I’m not sure he thinks they can get to the bottom of that problem,” she said.

DeLorenze also said she learned more about the person who tipped police to Luzzi’s thinking.

The woman, identified as Lori Lynch in court paperwork, lives out of state, and has known Luzzi since high school and is among a group of close friends who met as teenagers but still stay in touch, DeLorenze said.

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Lynch did not respond to a message seeking comment this week sent to her via social media, and a short time later, her profile on that network disappeared.

So far police have said they have enough probable cause to charge Luzzi, but are awaiting a decision by the Knox County District Attorney’s Office.

Although Boucher, the Rockland police chief, declined to discuss the specifics, he said police have enough probable cause to charge Luzzi with one crime. Separately, in in a search warrant affidavit, officers identified that crime as one count of terrorizing.

State law makes it a Class C felony punishable up to one year in prison to communicate a threat that results in a lockdown or other security response at a building or public place, even if the threat is not carried out.

“Again, the key issue is he’s getting the treatment he needs,” Boucher said. “His threat, whether real or imagined, is no longer a factor.”

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